Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton Back Alastair Cook To Lead England Despite India Series Loss
Dec 21, 2016 at 12:36 PM
England were brought down to their knees by India after they perished the visitors 4-0 in the recently concluded five-match Test series. They would have felt the burden of carrying the impact of an embarrassing series loss on their shoulders, as they left home on Tuesday night for the Christmas break.
Alastair Cook, who marshaled his troops in all five matches, was under the hammer straight-away as questions concerning his captaincy were already launched at him. However, with majority of English media asking him to step down from his position, Michael Atherton & Nasser Hussain have stood alongside him and have voiced their concern on the matter despite being disappointed with the result.
Nasser Hussain, who as a captain had success in 2001 Tests in India, said Cook should stay as the skipper but rather insisted some changes need to be made in his stubborn looking body language if he wishes to see the layout of different results in future.
“I don’t think he should go – but on the one proviso that he still has that fight and stubbornness in him. This is not a job you can do halfheartedly. He has to give it everything because he’s not a tactical genius – he has made loads of errors out there. But he always has done as captain. It’s like his batting, it’s not a work of art, but in the end there is a result where you think ‘look at those stats’ and that’s what his captaincy is like,” Hussain said.
Calling him mentally the toughest player he has seen until now, Hussain said his contribution as captain has been immense and writing him off would only add more misery to their woes.
“He is a very dangerous man to write off. We’ve all done it in the past. But this is a double-Ashes winning captain, who has won in India and South Africa. Cook is at his best when he has a point to prove. He is a stubborn so-and-so, and you write him off at your peril. Mentally, he is one of the toughest cricketers I have ever seen on this planet.”
Michael Atherton too joined the race and submitted his views on the same, saying he could see the shell-shock face of Cook after the loss and feared if he would hung his boots up, but not to his surprise, he didn’t. Atherton too felt the defeat was harsh on England but later admitted the decision to sack him as a captain is far from being real.
“There is only so much you can take. Alastair Cook has soaked up more than most. It may look different in a month’s time when he’s had a rest but looking at him after the defeat he looked like a man who’d had enough. If I was a betting man, I reckon he’ll step down in time. I don’t think he’ll be sacked but I think he’ll probably feel like he’s done enough; that would be my best guest.
“He looked absolutely shell-shocked. He had that haunted look that I’ve seen in many England captains’ eyes. This was a bad defeat. We thought Mumbai was a bad defeat, but they’ve gone worse here in Chennai.
The former opener said the beating in Chennai felt sore, as losing even after putting 477 on board in first innings was like a wallop.